154 CultureShock! Austria
sonatas, songs and 377 arrangements of Scottish and
Welsh airs.The Great Composers
Haydn knew both Mozart and Beethoven well. He loved Mozart like a
son and commented after the production of Don Giovanni, “Mozart is
the greatest composer the world possesses at this time.” Of Beethoven
he said, “(he) will eventually attain the position of one of the greatest
composers in Europe, and I shall be proud to call myself his teacher.”
To Mozart, Haydn became a surrogate father, and to Beethoven, a
mere teacher whom the latter would later criticise.Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756–91)
Mozart played before Empress Maria Theresa as a
child and before her son, Josef II, a few years later. The
Viennese nobility soon courted him, and Emperor Josef II
commissioned a dramatic musical or Singspiel entitled The
Abduction from the Seraglio or Il ratto dal seraglio. The piece
pleased both the king and his court, and Mozart went on to
compose other operas.
After his first success, he wrote The Marriage of Figaro
(1786), Don Giovanni (1787) and the Magic Flute (1791).
These operas were more popular with the common man. Part
of the reason that Mozart failed to win the court’s approval
was that he decided to work on his own as a freethinking,
‘freelance’ composer, instead of under the patronage of the
court. This defiant and independent attitude caused him
financial difficulties and the loss of his popularity among
the aristocracy.
The sad truth is that Mozart was a musical genius
unrecognised in his day. He was a mastermind as a composer
and a keyboard virtuoso who wrote popular music with
astounding alacrity and ease. His works often combined both
Classical elements in their perfection of formal balance, and
Romantic elements in the intensity of their expression. He
also wrote chamber music, piano sonatas and church music,
including the Requiem.
If Mozart ever reflected on his life, he must have
thought it an incredible disappointment and fraught with